Muggleborn, Not an Idiot!
by Duchess67
Summary: Lily wasn't a pureblood, she was a muggleborn witch and so should have been able to think of something other than a single charm and some sacrificial rite to protect her family. So… Here she does.


Muggleborn, Not an idiot!

Disclaimer: The characters you know aren't mine. I know this, you know this, so don't sue!

Summary: Lily wasn't a pureblood, she was a muggleborn witch and so should have been able to think of something other than a single charm and some sacrificial rite to protect her family. So… Here she does.

Author's note: Over on , I read a summary (one of Clell65619's stories) that made me think. Knowing Voldemort's M.O., and knowing he was coming after them, why didn't the Potters make contingency plans? Why trust the safety of their little family solely to one concealment charm?

...*0*...

Little Harry began to cry in his nursery.

Lily sat bolt upright, startling James awake as well when she jumped from the bed to hurry from the room.

Hearing his wife speak soothingly to their teething son, he sat up himself and decided to deal with his full bladder since he was already up. When he came out of the bathroom, he noticed Lily's wand gone from the nightstand and figured she must have needed to cast the charm on Harry again so the little tyke could get back to sleep. He felt chilly, so put on his warm bathrobe, picked up his wand and decided to see about renewing the warming charms around the house.

Out in the hall he paused at the sight of his beautiful, sleep tousled, wife where she sat in the rocking chair nursing their son. He would never get tired of looking at that and she knew it as she gave him a little smirk. He grinned back and made hand signals to say he was basically going to take a look round the house and she nodded before turning her attention back to the baby in her arms.

James was almost down the stairs when the front door opened to reveal their secret keeper. Startled into exclaiming rather loudly, "Peter! What are you doing here? What's wro-?" he broke off in shock. A look of pure horror at Peter's betrayal on his face, he yelled, "LILY, HE'S HERE!" He cast everything he knew at the intruders.

…*0*…

Upstairs, Lily heard the shout and spellfire, followed quickly by the sound of a body falling onto the stairs and then rolling down. Harry started to cry again.

She grabbed her wand up from the seat of the rocker by her thigh, cast a sleeping spell on her baby and yelled, "James!" For an agonizingly eternal five seconds she listened for any reply from her beloved.

When there was none, she stifled a sob and cast a silent spell on the ceiling over the stairs. That caused thousands of small objects to drop down, scattering there and all through the first floor of their home.

Almost immediately loud cursing came from the stairs and below as every time Voldemort or one of his Death Eaters touched one of the objects, it swelled in size AND grew barbed spikes that made them latch on to flesh, like giant cockleburs from hell. Each one had to be banished individually, trying to banish them as a group made the spikes push deeper into the skin of the victims. The Dark Lord must have found this out the hard way and a roar of pain and anger battered at the young mother before she raised her wand once more.

Casting another silent spell, the nursery door shut and metal shielding slammed down all four walls, blocking everything but the closet. Lily then grabbed a blanket to wrap her son in and transfigured her clothing into street clothes, her slippers into trainers.

She picked up Harry, opened the closet door and using her wand, banished everything inside before pointing her wand at the floor, making a section disappear. A slanted metal chute opened up that paralleled underneath the stairs at first before taking a hard left turn. Lily sat on the edge, leaned back and started to slide.

The moment her head went below the floor, the panel magically reappeared, making the floor whole once more. They ended up on a large cushion on the floor of a 12ft x12ft room with a low ceiling, well beneath the middle of the basement of the house.

A light crystal shone brightly from the moment the two entered the space. When she stood up, Lily cast finite incantatem so that their escape route disappeared as if it had never been.

Stooping down, she grabbed a jacket and harness for carrying Harry close to her chest. She got both on, putting her baby inside the harness to leave one of her hands totally free. That task complete, Lily pointed her wand at a suitcase and made it shrink so that it fit into her jacket pocket.

The wall opposite where the slide had been was the only egress, it was a downward sloped, dark tunnel. Grabbing the prepared diaper bag, Lily slung it over her left shoulder and with her wand in her right, she entered the tunnel in as close to a run as she dared. Like the room, this passageway had light crystals at regular intervals that lit up brightly on the ceiling as she and Harry got within a certain distance of them. The ones behind stayed on, obviously connected with glowing silver strands embedded in the ceiling.

Once Lily had gotten down the fifty foot passage, she reached up and touched a silvery strand with the tip of her wand, cancelling the charm that made the tunnel so short. It expanded to ten times its previous length. She touched the next strand and with a single spoken word, sent all the glowing light crystals zipping toward the room and closed the opening of the tunnel, collapsing the walls of it almost all the way to her position.

Lily paused and closed her eyes for a few moments before opening them again. She touched the third silvery strand with her wand and spoke one last spell. That done, she whirled around and disapparated away.

…*0*…

Tom Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort, was livid. He was in pain, too. He was thinking of how, when he got his hands on that redheaded witch, he planned to make her suffer far worse than he was at present. He would make her eat these horrible things she had subjected him and his Death Eaters to until they split her apart from the inside.

He'd been on the stairs when the magical cockleburs had rained down and activated. One of his most trusted followers, Lucius Malfoy, had tried to help in spite of his own predicament. After he'd bellowed in pain, he'd struggled to raise his wand and sent Lucius crashing through a window to land on the front lawn.

By the time he'd dealt with the barbed things and started up the stairs again, a strange, "clicking, clacking" sounded outside. Screams from the Death Eaters, stationed in the yard and the street, began to be heard before they were suddenly silenced. Then a loud "fwoosh" sound preceeded a darkness that covered all the windows and from the sound of whatever it was, the whole house as well.

Voldemort tried to go out and see what the problem was, but his own anti apparition ward stopped him. Before he could start back down the stairs, his world went white and then black.

…*0*…

Severus Snape had been ordered by his Master to stay behind. He disobeyed, but was still a block away, watching the attack begin with the revealing of the house. He'd heard James' voice yelling a warning to Lily and seconds later, her scream for her husband. He closed his eyes, his heart ached in pain at what must be going on inside. Unable to let himself believe she wouldn't surrender for days now, he'd hoped his Master could spare her. But at that moment he admitted to himself how wrong he was and turned away.

His Master's roar of pain and then Lucius' subsequent launch through a window onto the front lawn startled Severus into turning back. His fellow Death Eater was only recognizable from the bits of long blond hair that was visible through some strange, brown things. As soon as his brain had registered that fact, Lily's rose bushes morphed into huge, tentacles with six inch spikes that then grabbed every Death Eater within fifty yards of the house, seeming to target the dark marks on their arms.

Once a tentacle was in contact with that arm, another tentacle grabbed the body of the Death Eater and curled back down into their flower beds, subjecting each man and woman to multiple stab wounds everywhere. Obviously quite dead by the time they'd sunk back into the flower beds.

Severus was shocked at the brutal efficiency he'd witnessed in those few moments. He was even more shocked when the flower beds exploded, covering the entire house and garden in dirt several feet deep and appearing to harden quickly. A muffled, yet still quite loud "THUMP" of an explosion took place a few seconds later and the whole thing collapsed in on itself.

Severus hit his knees as he whispered, "Oh Lily, what have you done?" He had no doubt his childhood friend had been responsible for what he'd seen, they had been close after all, once upon a time. He knew how vindictive she could be.

At that moment, Albus Dumbledore and a few Order members apparated into sight ahead of him. Severus quietly got to his feet and slipped into the darkness, getting several streets away before he disapparated, never to be seen again.

…*0*…

At Gatwick Airport, an obviously tired young mother made her way to the ticket counter and booked a flight to America. She made her way onboard when it was time and sat by the window seat cradling her still sleeping baby boy. Pulling the blind down, Lily and Harry Potter left Britain behind and never looked back.


End file.
